What a story.
This week, Cody Jinks sat down on the Jarrod Morris Vibe podcast for a long conversation about his career and the music industry as a whole, speaking about going on tour with Luke Combs as well as some much deeper topics like his journey to sobriety and being “drunk for 24 years.”
Cody recalled the day he finally quit drinking relatively recently, on August 9th, 2023, when his two kids watched him “fall down drunk for the last time.” Something clicked in that moment, and he quit cold turkey and hasn’t touched a drink since then:
“August 9th, 2023. My kids saw me fall down drunk for the last time, actually. I never drank again. I woke up the next day and I was like, ‘This is a problem.’ Cold turkey, right in the middle of a tour, I went back out on the road. I had to learn how to stay sober on a tour bus, I took my first plane ride sober when I was 43. Did my first show sober, everything, recorded my first song sober.”
Cody admitted that there are “large chunks” of his career, years even, that he doesn’t remember at all because of the drinking:
“I don’t remember large chunks of my career. Years, I don’t remember some years. I just drank, I drank all of it, all the time. I woke up, started drinking, I’d drink until I passed out, show or not…. It was just because I knew I was good at it. I mean, I knew how good I was.
But I got sober, and we walked into a venue up in Indiana, right after I had gotten sober, and I was talking to my stage manager, and I walked in, I go, ‘This is a cool room, this will be a good show.’ He goes, ‘Yeah, we played here four times.’ I was like, ‘We, I? I played here four times?’ He was like, ‘Yeah.’ I was like, ‘Huh, alright. Well, it’s gonna be a good one, I’m sober now, so I’ll remember.'”
His wife, Rebecca, stood by his side through it all, and Cody explained that she never pushed him to do anything, but prayed for years that he would find sobriety and put the bottle down. Eventually, he did, and he credits God with all of it:
“28 years we’ve been together. No, no, she just lived with it. God bless her. I just woke up one day, and she had been praying for it for a long time. When you’re that big of a drunk and you just stop, yeah, there’s something higher going on.”
Cody was lucky in that he didn’t have a ton of severe physical symptoms, but he did have night sweats and some horrible dreams nightly for a while.
Mostly, though, he got his emotions back, and he cried for the first time in years, and has since worked through some of his problems in therapy and feels like a regular functioning human again:
“I became more emotional. Yes, I never cried, I didn’t cry for a lot of years, and I quit drinking, I started feeling things and then I started crying like a normal person. I had forgotten how. I was drunk 24 years… I don’t know, because after I quit drinking, I cried so much… it was weird.
Not anymore, I’ve had to go to therapy and learn how to re-feel things and what not, so I’m in control over all that. But right at first, it was pretty crazy.”
In an industry that heavily celebrates drinking more than pretty much any career, Cody’s story is inspiring and while doctors certainly wouldn’t recommend doing it cold turkey because it can be really dangerous for someone with a very severe alcohol problem, it’s impressive that he was able to come out on the to other side of it like this.
He is so open about his story, which is admirable, and you can watch him talk about his journey to sobriety here:
He will continue to tour pretty much all year, making great country music with even more on the way soon. Cody previously confirmed that he’s working on an album, and he just released a song this past Friday called “Put The Whiskey Down”:
Cody Jinks 2025 Tour Dates
March 14, 2025–New Orleans, LA–Mahalia Jackson Theatre of Performing Arts
March 20, 2025–Houston, TX–Houston Rodeo
April 6, 2025–Ft. Lauderdale, FL–Tortuga Music Festival
May 2-4, 2025–Arlington, TX–Lone Star Smokeout
May 29, 2025–Columbia, MO–9th Street*
May 30, 2025–Franklin, TN–FirstBank Amphitheater*
May 31-June 1, 2025–Lexington, KY–Railbird Festival
June 5, 2025–St. Catherine, ON–Meridian Centre^
June 6, 2025–Toronto, ON–Coca-Cola Coliseum^
June 7, 2025–Laval, QC–Place Bell^
June 26, 2025–Nampa, ID–Ford Idaho Center Amphitheater*
June 27, 2025–Idaho Falls, ID–Mountain America Center*
June 28, 2025–Casper, WY–Ford Wyoming Center*
July 4, 2025–Abbotsford, BC–Abbotsford Centre^
July 5, 2025–Kelowna, BC–Prosepera Place^
July 10, 2025–Wheatland, CA–Hard Rock Live*
July 11, 2025–Stateline, NV–Lake Tahoe Outdoor Arena at Harveys*
July 12, 2025–Berkeley, CA–Greek Theatre UC Berkeley*
July 17, 2025–Kent, WA–accesso ShoWare Center*
July 19, 2025–Airway Heights, WA–Northern Quest Amphitheater*
July 26, 2025–Morrison, CO–Red Rocks Amphitheatre
August 7, 2025–Asbury Park, NJ–Stone Pony Summer Stage#
August 8, 2025–Philadelphia, PA– The Met Philadelphia presented by Highmark#
August 9, 2025–Baltimore, MD–Pier Six Pavilion*
August 11, 2025–Virginia Beach, VA–The Dome#
August 13, 2025–New York, NY–The Rooftop at Pier 17#
August 15, 2025–Bridgeport, CT–Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater*
August 16, 2025–Boston, MA–Leader Bank Pavilion*
August 17, 2025–Syracuse, NY–Empower Federal Credit Union Amphitheater at Lakeview*
September 18, 2025–Des Moines, IA–Lauridsen Amphitheater at Water Works Park*
September 19, 2025–Indianapolis, IN–Everwise Amphitheater at White River State Park*
September 20, 2025–Youngstown, OH–Youngstown Foundation Amphitheatre*
*with Tanner Usrey
^with Ward Davis
#with Shane Smith & The Saints
